Blackening stainless?

[doctorj77]

Doing a bisley conversion soon on a blued Super Blackhawk, but the parts Ruger sells anymore are ss only. I'd like to get the frame and two grip screws finished to match the rest of the gun. Is there anyone locally that can do it? I can always send it to Robar or similar but rather someone local

[10x25mm]

The only way to get a good color and texture match is to depassivate the stainless steel, iron plate it, and then blue it. This is how the early stainless barrels on factory magnum rifles were processed by American rifle manufacturers in the 1960's. It is not very durable and few perform this processing anymore.

A few finishers have attempted to depassivate stainless and blue it directly, but this finish fades when the wind shifts.

Quench-polish-quench (QPQ) processing is the most durable blackening process for stainless steel, but a poor color and texture match for bluing. A lot of finishers perform QPQ processing, which can be performed on non stainless steels (the rest of your revolver) to obtain a better color and texture match.

Some PVD metal finishers offer blue color finishes which can approach the color and texture of blued finishes, but this is a crap shoot. Good durability, on a par with QPQ.

Figure out what blackening process you want first, before you select a finisher.

[RifleGuy]

Refinishing the entire gun in Birdsong Black T would be attractive...